


286 Miles and Counting

by quixoticquest



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Amputation, Everyone lives, Guns, High School, M/M, One Shot, Paranoia, Pining, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Vignette, Weapons, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombie-related violence, helpful parents, kind of, separated, useless parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 14:23:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16578200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quixoticquest/pseuds/quixoticquest
Summary: Prompt: "Zombie AU"An epidemic breaks out in southern Canada while Richie, Beverly, Stanley, and Ben are on a field trip in Quebec. The infection eventually spreads to Maine and Eddie, Bill, and Mike have to take matters into their own hands. There's over 286 miles between Montreal and Derry, but there's a lot that gets in the way when your traveling on foot, and pining after your best friend in the middle of a zombie outbreak.





	286 Miles and Counting

**Author's Note:**

> This was a lot longer than I meant it to be. I also just shoved a mish mash of zombie tropes in and called it lore, so I hope it's all comprehensible. It's a little mess but I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing.

“Ah,  _ le français _ ,” Richie gushed in the accent he had been practicing all week (courtesy of Pepe le Pew). “Croissants, baguettes, escargot! French  _ ladies _ .”

“We’re going to Quebec,” Stan deadpanned, tucked in on himself in an effort to stop shivering. Early spring meant nothing to Maine, and at seven AM, the cold was downright unbearable.

“Wait,  _ what _ ? This isn’t the bus to Paris? Shit, I really wanted to see if we’d make it across the Atlantic without drowning.”

“Shut up, Richie.” Beverly was too tired to slug him in the arm, even after her power nap in the gym while they waited for the bus, head and legs pillowed atop Ben and Richie respectively. Now, she was trying her hardest to turtle into her scarf. How Richie could muster so much energy at this hour, no one knew. Maybe it was the Coca-Cola he drank for breakfast on his way to school.

“I can’t believe you’re coming with us, Richie,” Ben exclaimed, a little loud as he blinked hard, in an effort to stay upright and awake while he still had to stand. “Wish I knew you were coming when my class was picking roommates.”

The French IV Montreal field trip was the most anticipated educational excursion at Derry High. Only a select few found a seat on this hallowed bus: those who had made it all four years in French, which was no easy feat, and those who could make a case to the vice principal that they could glean an educational experience from attending. Richie Tozier fell into the latter category. He was in Spanish, like Eddie and Bill, and he had done a whole ass presentation, with flash cards and everything, about how going to Quebec would help him in his AP History class. 

He, of course, didn’t intend to do a lick of research, or study, after he crossed the border.

“Not to worry, Benjamin, I won’t be alone on those cold Canadian nights,” Richie promised, slinging his arm around Stanley’s tense shoulders. “I’ll have Stan here to keep me nice and toasty. Hot cocoa, fuzzy pajamas, a little kiss on the nose before bed.”

“I’m begging you, save it for eight AM.” Stan wriggled himself away with what little energy he had, while Richie made a mental note to ham it the fuck up as soon as his watch hit  _ 8:00 _ .

The whole time they had been meandering toward the bus, waiting to be checked off the headcount, the student parking lot had begun to fill with cars, as groggy students trickled into the school to kill time before homeroom. Girls with half their makeup done, stoners heading for a quick high under the bleachers, dorks bound for the library entrance to study - one particular dork still bundled up in his puffy red coat, despite the change of seasons and no intentions of visiting Canada anytime soon.

“Hey Eds!” Richie called, hands cupped around his mouth (while Beverly, Ben, and Stan stepped away to distance themselves from the scene he was making). “C’mere! You can hop in my backpack, we’ll smuggle you across the border!”

Even from several yards away, he could see Eddie spark to attention, some excitable emotion flashing on his face as he jogged across the parking lot, both hands clutched around the tightened straps of his backpack. His hair floofed up with every step, but his perfectly-styled part stayed intact.

“I’m glad I caught you guys before you left,” he said in a winded rush, cheeks splotchy and red from chill and exertion.

“Aw man, I was really hoping for a feisty little comeback,” Richie lamented, sighing dramatically. “You guys are  _ not _ morning people, are you?”

Eddie wrinkled his nose and rolled his eyes. “Shut up, Richie. Tell you what, I’ll have one for when you come back. Then it’ll make sense. A  _ come back _ comeback, get it?”

“Eddie Kaspbrak, you’re a regular Jerry Seinfeld.”

“We’ll get you and Bill and Mike souvenirs,” Ben promised, faster toward the end when the vice principal called his name, prompting him to head up the bus steps.

“So long as nothing’s exorbitantly expensive,” Stan put in pointedly. “All that tourist trap stuff is a waste of money.”

“Hope you like hotel shampoo and face soap,” Beverly muttered on a sound that might have been a snort. It might also have been a snore, given her lethargic posture.

The students were dwindling as they disappeared onto the bus, leaving Richie with one foot on the first stair as the kids who actually took French started yelling at him to get a move on.

“I’ll see you in a week!” he told Eddie, inching his way up to the next step incrementally. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do! Don’t die or nothing!”

“Just get on the bus, you dumbass!” Eddie shouted.

“ _ Volonté faire, peu homme _ !” Pleased with himself for shelling out the money for that English-to-French pocket dictionary once and for all (and that Eddie didn’t take French to mock him for his nonexistent conjugation), Richie hurled himself up the rest of the steps, shuffled down the bus aisle, and descended into the seat beside Stanley with a noisy thump. 

From the window, he watched Eddie wave ineffectually in an effort to gauge what was behind the tinted windows of the bus, before giving up in a huff to make his way into school. Richie smirked to himself, and set his watch for eight o’clock, before pulling his beanie down over his eyes for a nice, relaxing nap. The perfect precursor to what he hoped to be a stressless excursion with three of his best friends.

***

Crackling static finally gave way to the chorus of  _ Thriller _ , and a murmur of agreement resounded as Mike lifted his hands away from the radio to crack open his deck of playing cards.

“Do you remember how to play poker, Eddie?” he asked, using his strong fingers to shuffle the cards in a flutter of sound.

Eddie grimaced. “No. I don’t have any cash for you guys to drain out of me anyway. ”

Mike laughed. “Go Fish it is, then.”

He started laying out cards, going around the three of them faster than Eddie thought his own stubby fingers could manage. He couldn’t even shuffle a deck without the whole stack of fifty-two exploding out of his hands.

“Hey Bill,” he said all of a sudden, taking his cards as Mike gave them, tucking the corners together so he had a neat stack to work with. “Why didn’t you try to go on the French trip? I bet your parents would have let you.”

Bill shrugged, waiting until Mike had put all his cards in front of him to pick up his hand. “Yeah b-but it was a lot of m-muh-m-money. Over a grand. I w-w-would ha-ave gotten reamed out f-for even bringing it up.”

“That’s true.” Eddie sighed, and set his head on his free hand. It hadn’t been quite the same since Stan, Ben, Beverly, and Richie had left. It had been two days now and playing cards with Bill and Mike was getting boring. It wasn’t warm enough to swim and it wasn’t cold enough for snow and it was impossible to agree on a movie. Eddie didn’t know what he was going to do when they all split up for college.

If only his mom didn’t suck so bad. Then he could have gone to Quebec (though, maybe then, he wouldn’t have known what to do without Mike and Bill instead).

“Okay,” Mike proclaimed, bringing Eddie and his absent mind back to the present, so he could tuck his cards close to his chest where no one could see. “Bill, do you have any threes?”

“Go f-fuh-fish.”

Mike huffed and pulled from the pile in the middle them, just as  _ Thriller _ died out to the radio station jingle.

“What’s up Bangor, it’s another sunny day in Maine, with a high of fifty-five and a low of thirty-one. Quick local update for ya, little trouble up north in Ottawa, where residents are showing signs of a peculiar infection-”

“J-j-juh-just change it,” Bill muttered with a wave of his hand. Mike moved for the dial, but Eddie  stopped him, flinging his arm out to get a grip on the flannel sleeve taut around a dark, smooth bicep.

“Hold on,” he ordered, some long-accustomed panic sparking in him as his eyes fixed on the radio.

“-toms include fatigue, high fever, lowered motor function, and rapid hunger. The CDC does not believe we’re in any serious danger here in the States, but encourages those of you who live north of Lincoln not to drink tap water. They say bathing and washing clothes and dishes is fine, but just be careful you guys, alright? I know my wife would kill me if I got any hungrier than I already am. Now in Augusta-”

“Is Ottawa close to Montreal?” Eddie asked, feeling like he should have paid more attention in Geography. Maybe Biology too, though he didn’t think knowledge would stop his skin from crawling like he was twelve and afraid of everything he’d ever heard about germs.

“I’m not sh-sh-sure. They’re a whole p-p-pruh-providence apart though,” Bill answered, tilting his head. 

“It’s probably just a bacteria thing,” Mike put in. If it was supposed to be helpful, Eddie couldn’t tell. “And tourists know not to drink tap water in another country anyway, or they could get sick.”

“Even in Canada?”

“Even in Canada.” Bill glanced through his cards, and lifted his gaze to stare pointedly at Eddie. “Now, got any J-Juh-Jacks?”

***

The savory sweet tang of tomatoes and cheese hit Richie’s nostrils like a semi-truck, and he knew, it was about to be a party.

“ _ Tres bien _ !” he exclaimed triumphantly as Ben came out of the front hall of their hotel room, toting a thin cardboard box in both hands that could only be one thing.

“Would you stop?” Stanley demanded, back from his shower with his curls wet and steam clinging to his skin. “Your pronunciation is horrendous.”

“Which is why I’m not in French IV.” Smiling smugly, for some reason, Richie relieved Ben of his burden to flip the box open. Inside was a pizza that didn’t look all that different from American pizza, pepperoni and crust and all. Granted, Canada had Domino’s too. 

“Mr. Handsome, Mr. Urine. Shall we?”

Before Richie could so much as take a single slice, the door to their room resounded with the daintiest of knocks, as if pelted by hummingbirds. The three teenage boys glanced between each other, confused; chaperone check-in had already come and gone.

“Haystack, you didn’t scam the delivery boy, did you?” Richie asked simply.

“No,” Ben retorted, needlessly defensive.

“Richie, I’m indecent,” Stanley said, which was basically his way of saying  _ Go answer the door _ . Personally, Richie didn’t think a towel around the waist necessarily counted as  _ indecent _ , since you couldn’t see any bits or pieces, but he couldn’t think of a fun enough argument in time, so he sighed and acquiesced.

Wondering if maybe he had accidentally broke some random Quebeccian law and the police had come to collect him, the last person Richie expected to find on the other side of the door was Beverly Marsh - in retrospect, though, that was probably more likely than the Mounties.

Before he could utter a single word, she put a finger to her lips in the universal gesture of shush, grinning with Cheshire-like glee as she zipped past Richie and into the hotel room, toward the shocked expressions of Stan and Ben.

“Miss Marsh! On the  _ boys’ floor _ ?!” Richie stage-whispered, letting his whole body rock with feigned astonishment (once the door was shut and bolted, of course). “Can’t say I’m surprised. We must be your third or fourth visit.”

“Shut up!” she hissed, though any attempt to appear serious was marred by her hands, stifling laughter. “If I spend another night with Brenda Arrowhead I’m going to jump out the window. I gave her twenty bucks to keep quiet.”

“Do you think you can trust her?” Ben asked, looking a bit scared, like a chaperone might burst in at any moment.

“Well, it was twenty bucks, and I threatened to rat her out for shoplifting from the MMFA gift shop.”

“You can’t be here,” Stan insisted, arms crossed in all his half-naked glory. “We’re going to get in trouble.”

“Ben’s here!  _ He’s _ not rooming with you guys.”

“Yeah but he’s got permission. You wanna go ask someone right now? By all means.”

“What the chaperones don’t know won’t hurt ‘em.” Bev shrugged a coy shoulder and sat down at the desk where they had put the pizza. “Richard, Benjamin, any objections?”

“I guess not,” Ben murmured (obviously).

“None here,” Richie added. “Now  _ this _ is  _ tres bien _ !”

Stanley stopped grumbling and got dressed at some point, and they finished the pizza in a half hour flat. The four of them filled in the rest of the time channel surfing. It appeared that all the good stuff was in French and all the boring stuff was in English, so they flipped to the generic hotel channel to serve as background noise to their hushed conversations, complete with quiet giggles and enthusiastic whispers.

It wasn’t whole, only half complete, but these were the times Richie wouldn’t trade for anything, even as the mediocre world raged on in the background.

At some point, he must have fallen asleep, launched out of lingering darkness next thing he knew by a hand on his shoulder, shaking until he was some semblance of alert.

“Wuhrt?” Richie mumbled intelligently.

“Get up,” someone whispered - was it Beverly or Ben? Sometimes they had the same cadence. “Something’s wrong outside.”

Feeling around for his glasses, Richie eventually shoved his frames up his face, and sat up enough to gauge Stan and Beverly at the window.

“Issat fireworks?” he asked, as sharp bangs ricocheted in succession, muffled as they were by the wall and window. Sirens followed suit, growing and falling in volume, and he thought, maybe not fireworks, lumbering to his feet to join his friends in front of the glass. 

It took a moment for his eyes to focus, but the bright globs of flame smattered around the street were unmistakable. Along the road, cars either sat immobile, or veered at top speed around obstacle and barrier alike. 

Wavering figures wandered between stationary vehicles, while others darted past staggering, harried, frightful. The fireworks rang out, lancing through the lethargic bystanders as screams billowed up from the ground.

“Holy shit,” Richie whispered, while he still knew them to be living, breathing people.

***

“What was once thought to be a virtually harmless bacterial infection is now a full-fledged fatal ailment,” the news anchor reported grimly, hands clasped on the table in front of her like it was just the next story to report. Alliteration and all! “What authorities are calling the Ottawa Strain has quickly grown into an epidemic in southern Canada, originating in Ottawa’s water supply and making its way up and down the east coast. The infection takes affect rapidly, contagious via exposure to bodily fluids or infected water. Ottawa and Montreal have been quarantined, among other towns and cities. Officials have closed the border crossing indefinitely. If anyone in the northeastern United States is suffering from or knows someone suffering from high fever and increased fatigue, seek medical attention immediately. Do not engage with Infected-”

Eddie gasped into his aspirator, pressing his fists to his forehead in an effort to stop his body from shaking. He didn’t know if he’d ever felt this panicked and helpless before. And that was saying something.

The Montreal trip was supposed to have ended a couple days ago, in time for the fourth quarter to start. The school wasn’t telling anyone jack shit. People were finding out through the news. And fuck was it a way to find out.

Eddie didn’t know what to do about the footage of dead people walking around. Part of him thought they would have looked different. More George Romero. That part was pretty damn loud, considering there was no rational way to process the state of the world at that moment.

He had to talk to Bill. In person. He didn’t even know what to  _ say _ to Bill, just that he’d know what to do. When he felt he could stand without his legs giving out on him, Eddie darted out of the living room, up the steps to retrieve his backpack.

When he got back down, his mother was standing by the front door. Deja-vu hit him like a frisbee upside the head.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Sonia asked, exasperated.

“Bill’s house,” Eddie explained simply.

“No, you’re not. Have you seen the news lately? There’s a pandemic, Eddie!”

“An  _ epidemic _ ,” Eddie argued.

“You’re not leaving my sight,” Sonia stated, pudgy finger wagging like a limp sausage, as Eddie’s blood sang in his ears. “You don’t know what’s out there, it could already  _ be _ here, oh, I have to buy bottled water-”

These days, Eddie was a little too big to just dart past her, and found himself floundering in the middle of the front hall, dropping his backpack to his side. Trapped, with her, until all this blew over? No way to know if his friends were okay?

The worst part was, he didn’t know what was out there. And he  _ was  _ scared of it.

***

“Any sevens?” Ben asked, peering up over his hand of cards.

Richie hummed thoughtfully, and finally offered a resounding, “Go fish.”

“We’re missing a couple sevens,” Stan pointed out. “Remember?”

“Oh, right.”

Richie flung his hand down. This was stupid. Why even play with an incomplete deck? More importantly, why were the physicals taking so fucking long? It wasn’t like there were very many people to hold up the very few doctors. 

Beverly finally appeared from behind the plastic curtain, adjusting her shirt, and the coat over it that had once been a crisp emerald green. Now it was dirty, and dull, like all their clothes. That’s what happened whent the washers were out of service and you had to sleep on the ground sometimes.

“Well?” Richie asked, propping his feet up on Stanley’s lap (these days he didn’t even push him off). “Doc’s gonna put one between your eyes or did he say we could do it?”

Fuck but he hoped it stayed a joke.

Bev shook her head, smiling a little. Thank god. “No, I’m all good. Clear to leave. What about you guys?”

“They’re making Ben stay behind because he thought his doctor’s mole was a bug.”

“No they’re  _ not _ !” Ben insisted, flushing as red as the medical crosses they had been seeing so much of lately.

“Let’s get going,” Stanley said, Richie’s legs sliding off him as he stood. “I think we’ve all had enough of Montreal.”

Richie whistled in agreement. To think, if he  _ hadn’t _ made that masterpiece presentation back in April.

There was no bus to carry them out of Quebec, no chaperones to check off their names. At this point, they weren’t even sure what had happened to their classmates. The only reason Richie, Stan, Ben, and Beverly knew what each other was up to was because they had opted to stay together. And honestly, was there really any other way to go?

They flashed their passes to the exit officials, and they were off without a hitch, away from the dead and the people begging to get out, waiting weeks for a physical. Outside was almost too quiet. No cars, no people. Just dead stragglers, wanderers on the horizon, between trees and buildings.

It took a week, and then some, to reach the border. They kept getting sidetracked, or lost. Maps weren’t so great when you had to walk several miles. But they managed it, all by themselves, with what rations and makeshift tools they had. If only someone had been kinder about getting them guns, or at least machetes. Richie couldn’t imagine the licensing system being very useful with literal zombies walking around.

They reached the border crossing only to find it absolutely abandoned. No one in sight, and hadn’t been for miles. Did they even need their passports? Richie was pretty sure he had lost his around the end of April anyway.

And then, they just walked across. Into the United States, without any pomp and circumstance. Richie couldn’t think of a single joke. Something about immigration didn’t seem appropriate at a time like this. But if he had to look at his friends’ somber faces anymore, he was going to scream. And not funny scream. Crisis scream.

“Think Eddie’ll still like me if I turn?” Richie asked, trying not to sound desperate. “It’ll probably be gross if my jaw falls off but not as gross as what’s growing between Mrs. K’s chins.”

They groaned and told him to shut up, the best reaction Richie could have hoped for.

***

It was weird to hear M*A*S*H reruns from the TV downstairs, knowing a fifth of the continent had fallen into disease-ridden chaos.

School had let out not very long ago, and there had been no further development in attempts to eradicate the Ottawa Strain. No cure, no nothing. When it all went tits up, the feds just sectioned off that particular part of the country. Now, it seemed, Derry might be next on that list. Sonia didn’t like to watch or hear the news very much, but Eddie had managed to get enough out of Bill and Mike when they talked on the phone.

He had had his emergency backpack ready since first hearing the infection had entered Maine. Hoping it got stamped out before now had been wishful thinking - even borderline rational thinking, since his overactive imagination usually got the better of him. If only that were the case now.

Eddie knew there was no way he was getting past his mother downstairs. She had made it very clear he wasn’t allowed to leave the house (unless of course it was to get groceries, fill prescriptions, go to school when it had been in session…). But he wasn’t about to die in his bedroom. Whether from the infection or plain old insanity, who fucking knew.

He had seen Richie scale up and down the tree that scraped against his window a hundred times, so Eddie was relatively confident in his own abilities to get down. His legs turned out to be long enough to reach a branch from the sill, and he inched his way carefully, ever mindful of how much noise he was making. Richie oofed and urfed his way each and every time, and it had set Eddie on edge to no end.

If only he’d known back then what really being set on edge about Richie’s safety was like.

Both sneakers hit the soft grass with little more than a grunt from their wearer, and Eddie bolted out of the yard faster than Sonia could click through channels. Everything he could possibly need for survival was currently on his person (a list he’d had to narrow down extensively), and the weight of it all was nagging and apparent by the time he met Bill and Mike at the corner, achy and sheening with sweat. That was probably something he’d just have to get used to.

“What’s the plan?” Eddie huffed, hands planted on his knees as he struggled to catch his breath.

“We can’t s-s-stay here,” Bill answered, jaw set. He had mentioned trying to get his parents to come, when Eddie could hear their distant tense conversation over the phone. They must have decided not to.

“Derry’s not going to do anything,” Mike added, more laden with belongings than even Eddie (though he could probably handle it better). “My granddad wants to stay here and feel out the situation, but I can’t risk it. We heard Augusta neutralized the infection. Running pretty smooth. It’s a stronghold where you can set up camp, get rations and weapons and stuff.”

“Gosh.” Eddie wrinkled his nose. “What is this, a video game?” 

“I wish.”

“It w-would take about a day to walk there,” Bill continued. “If I did the m-muh-math right. I think that’s alright. We can stop f-for breaks and to s-suh-sl-sleep along the way.”

They were so set to task. But could Eddie really be surprised?

Probably about as surprised as he could be at himself for nodding at Bill.

“I’m in,” he decided, not giving his voice any time to waver. 

Bill smiled as much as he was able, and nodded back. Mike gripped him by the arm. Eddie wondered if he looked as pale as he felt.

“So,” he said, glancing between them, “walk must mean you guys aren’t willing to steal any cars, huh.”

***

If things were normal, Richie probably would have gotten a haircut around this time. It had been about six months since his last, and his mom would have done it, and told him how he should start going to a real barber instead. There wasn’t really a place for barbers in the apocalypse, and he didn’t like thinking about where his mom might be right now, so Richie’s hair hung a little lower than he usually kept it, just past the nape of his neck.

“It’s not the apocalypse,” Stanley sighed, splayed across the floor of the barn like it didn’t stink of animal. There were only so many places to sleep these days, and clean smell was a hot commodity. Rain pattered against the wooden roof, dripping through slats and onto the muddy ground. A handful of other wandering survivors took shelter alongside them, and tried to get a handheld radio working. 

“What?” Beverly snorted, poised on a mushy bale of wet hay, propped up against Ben’s sturdy back. “I thought the Torah covered resurrection of the dead in their version of Ragnarok.”

Stan cracked an eye open. “Ragnarok is Norse. You must be thinking of the Rapture, but that’s Christian.”

“I thought it was Revelation,” Ben chimed in.

“That’s just the part of the Bible where they talk about it.”

“What about the Reckoning?”

“I don’t know, I don’t study eschatology.”

“Hey hey hey, we were talking about my hair,” Richie whined, pulling at curly strands. In the front his bangs hung all the way down to his chin, plastered across his broken glasses. They had fallen off when he scrambled up a wire fence the day before, to get away from some particularly quick-footed Infected. He also ripped up his favorite pair of jeans in the process.

“Bev, could I trust you to take a knife to these luscious locks? I’ll pay you nine dollars and three nickels,” he implored, glancing over his shattered lenses.

She laughed. “As if I’ll have any use for money anytime soon.”

Richie opened his mouth to retort, only for the radio to swell, picking up on some sound that could be considered human speech. Everyone fell silent for as long as it took to tune in to something resembling a clear signal. One of the randos had to keep his fingers pressed around the dial to keep it marginally coherent.

“-wa Strain---inues to spread---reas of heavy infec---ngor, Derry, Portland, and in---et as far south---possib-”

The static buzzed loud and strong again, with no hope of dying down. “Shit,” one of the strangers swore, knocking his fist against the dinky metal box.

Somehow, up until this point, Derry had seemed untouchable. Maybe because Derry was so set in its indifferent ways. Maybe because of the memories, frozen in time like Polaroids. 

But film expired. You wouldn’t think so, but it does. A lot of things expired that Richie Tozier had only just recently become aware of.

He shot to his feet, suddenly itchy in all his bones. “Shut it off, that noise is god-awful! The strain is two steps ahead of us anyway so you might as well just kiss your asses goodbye.”

“Richie,” Ben and Beverly said in almost-unison, both sounding astounded. As if they had any right to be scandalized in this day and age. By Richie of all people!

“Didn’t you hear what it said?” While the strangers shifted away and dimmed the volume, Richie crossed back and forth in the space he and his friends occupied. Stepping over Stan enough times prompted the exasperated Jew to sit up, only to duck when he almost got a face full of Richie’s knee.

“It’s in Derry now you guys, Derry! It’s like traveling all this fucking way was for nothing!”

“Are you sure that’s what it said?” Stan asked dryly. “I couldn’t make out a single complete sentence.”

“I thought we were going to find Bill, Mike, and Eddie,” Ben said, quiet and cautious in the face of Richie’s meltdown - which came to a grinding halt as he froze, mid-stride.

Time stopped in agonizing detail, and all Richie could do was conjure up the last stupid thing he said to Eddie. A complete, fucking waste of breath. What else was new?

“Eddie!” Richie gasped, stumbling back with the realization. “What’s gonna happen to Eddie? Oh my god there’s no fucking way Mrs. K is even gonna let him out of her stupid sight! What if she locks him up, and he dies of starvation? What if they drop a bomb on Derry and he doesn’t even fucking know because he’s stuck in his house? What if he gets caught by one of the Dead and freezes up ‘cause he’s scared and gets eaten, or bitten? You know he’s terrified of disease, can you fucking imagine him now? Can he even function? Oh fuck, oh fuck-”

“Richie!” Beverly snapped. “You’re being a spaz.”

“Can you fucking blame me?!”

Her lack of response was plenty answer, but that didn’t stop Bev from grabbing Richie by the arm, nearly wrenching it out of its socket to get him to face her squarely. Her blue eyes were hard as ice as she yanked at the ratty zipper of his dirty jacket.

“You’re not helping,” she declared, while Richie struggled to keep his broken glasses from fogging up with hot, pitiful tears. “There’s no way to know if Bill or Mike or Eddie are dead or alive or Infected but it sure as hell isn’t going to help anything if you lose it from here on out. If they are alive, and we want to find them, then the least you can do is keep it together.”

It was none of the calm, collected support Richie was so accustomed to from Bill, on the occasion their fearless leader helped him through a rare (he hoped) meltdown. But Bill wasn’t here. Not even Mike, who came in at a close second for comfort. Made a mean cup of tea. Richie didn’t even really like tea but it sure tasted good out of a mug straight from Mike’s rough and tough hands. 

He should have been glad Stanley didn’t stand up to slap some sense into him. Beverly’s reality wasn’t ideal but it was something. Something to focus on, before Richie’s mind reeled away from him with all the terrible possibilities of what might be happening in Derry at that very moment. And she was right, about him losing it. The least he could do was keep a level head. And well, not die, probably.

Blinking away from his ridiculous peak, Richie nodded quickly, relishing the ache that followed Beverly’s chipped nails where they had been embedded in his arms. His hands weren’t doing any good twitching at his sides, so he lifted them to shove his glasses up his nose, and then to rake through his overgrown hair.

“Yeah, yeah you’re right, I’m sorry,” he finally said, glancing around the abandoned barn. “We should go, now. We’ve been taking too many detours. Too many breaks.” What part of Maine were they even in now?”

“It’s raining,” Stan mentioned, a little softer than Richie was used to.

“You should get some rest,” Bev said. “While you can. I’ll take first watch.”

“You mean it?” 

“Yeah, I’ve been having trouble sleeping anyway.”

Knowing there wasn’t anything he could do, with the weather raging strong, Richie caved. He would have been lying if he said he wasn’t tired anyway.

With Beverly upright and alert on her hay bale, Ben, Stan, and Richie settled in to sleep as long as they could, as fast as they could, in times like these. Richie stared at the blurry world beyond his bare eyes and, unbeknownst to his friends, let his mind wander through all the millions of things he could say to Eddie when they met again, to make up for his crummy last words.

So long as he met Eddie again at all.

***

Sirens were a thing of the past. Eddie had grown used to the church bells that had been repurposed for emergencies since coming to Augusta, through drills and false alarms, repeated until it was muscle memory to run.

This time, it was real.

“How did they even get in?” he shouted, hurling through the crowd of panicked survivors with his hand clutched around Bill’s backpack, jostling with every step. As if it mattered! He should have known Augusta was too good to be true.

“Breach in the f-f-fuh-fence!” Bill yelled over his shoulder, ducking around a corner that gave way to an even greater throng of people, railing against the exit out of the city. “I told th-them it wasn’t going to hold.”

Holding his tongue about any thoughts regarding how authorities weren’t likely to listen to a stuttering teenager, Eddie resolved instead to pat down his body with his free hand, as others bumped and knocked against him with every step. Inhaler, first aid kit, hunting knife (shocking, I know). What else was there?

“Do you have everything?” he called to Bill, amazed and outraged by how loud he had to project in the all of two feet he stood from his best friend. Like the George Michael concert but bad.

Bill lifted his head, as if to nod - only for his eyes to blow wide, clear and green as his mouth dropped open. Eddie’s stomach caved in on itself.

He only saw Bill’s mouth move as he whispered.  _ Mike _ .

Running against the crowd was next to impossible, but Eddie managed to duck close to the ground as he and Bill booked it, shouting plans to reconvene at the gutted bank they had holed up in all this time, when hopes of sticking together through the exodus were completely dashed. Bells, screams, and bodies all urged them in the direction of the exit, but there was no way he could heed any of them just yet.

Eventually the crowd began to thin, until Eddie could haul himself upright and sprint along the empty street, around abandoned cars, useless if you didn’t know how to hotwire. The further he ran, the closer he got to the breach. Eddie had to force himself to slow down at some point, peer around corners, take the long way around. It was agonizing and terrifying but he was no good to anyone Infected.

When he found the bank, he made his way briskly, not allowing the sluggish Dead enough time to turn and trail after him. Like he was just walking in to deposit a check, Eddie opened and shut the door behind him, stepped off the stoop that separated the lobby from the street, and carried on to the counter. The only difference (beside the glaringly obvious, apocalyptic ones) was that he hopped over the counter, and went straight to the safe. So, maybe more like a robber than a patron.

They had slept in the safe for the last few weeks, pulling the heavy door shut each night until a sliver of space remained. Huge metal doors didn’t really work for Infected, and any looters that might wander in would give Bill, Mike and Eddie ample time to defend themselves when they took a full minute to heave it open.

Their blankets and pillows were strewn across the ground, but other than that, the room was empty. “Mike?” Eddie called, just in case. There were only so many other places to check in the bank, but he ran through them nevertheless. Even the bathrooms, which had been gross and unusable since they arrived in Augusta. Apparently the first priority in a disaster scenario was steal money and deface property.

He took a moment to swear and kick a stall door in, marching back into the lobby as his mind raced with other places Mike might be. Had he already made it out? Had Bill already found him? And where was Bill?

Eddie was so distraught that he missed the stoop entirely, and his sneaker connected with solid marble, sending him face first into the door. 

He caught himself on the handle but it threw out his arm, landing on the ground a lot harder than he would have if it was all open air. Hot red embarrassment flooded Eddie’s cheeks, his palms, elbows, and knees ringing with the impact. 

There wasn’t much time to dwell in his humiliation, though. He was halfway through two sturdy glass doors, and the Dead had definitely noticed the commotion.

Of course they had to be quick in the worst of times, staggering toward Eddie blindly. He tried to push himself up, but the doors were caught in opposite directions, digging into his sides with every push and shove. Gasping in pain, he decided fuck that, and reached around for the knife strapped to his thigh.

The first Infected came close enough that Eddie swiped at its mottled gray face, but wounds weren’t all that effective on a body that didn't register pain. His chest thumped with the beat of his heart and his waist clenched in agony where the doors crushed him and his lungs threatened to give out on him at every second, but Eddie shoved his knife up and into the Infected’s eye with an angry howl that beat back all his hang ups about germs with a fiery stick.

“ _ Get the fuck away from me! _ ” he screamed, managing to shove the Infected back with the hilt of his knife, sprawling across the sidewalk, praying by some miracle that the tip had connected with the brain or brain stem or some vital part that would leave the damn thing down for the count.

But there was a second one, lurching forward, and Eddie was completely, utterly weaponless. His fists had come in handy before though, and he swung haphazardly, eyes screwed shut as he screamed at the top of his lungs and smashed into the Infected, back and forth.

Blackened bloody nails closed around Eddie’s arm. His shouts turned shrill, as he tried desperately to push himself back out of the doors’ vise. The Infected pulled the other way, scraping searing, festering lines through Eddie’s skin.

And then, a bang exploded in the air. It left Eddie’s ears ringing and for a split second, he thought he was dead.

Up until a couple months ago, Eddie never thought that Mike Hanlon would pick up a firearm, if you didn’t count the cattle gun. These days, his grandfather’s rifle became useful way to often. Now Mike helded in both hands, lowered from his eye as his chest heaved up and down.

The stinking remains of the Dead laid splattered across the concrete, what was left of an already mutilated head unrecognizable now. Bits and pieces of rotten flesh and bone clung to Eddie's clothes, but he had learned a long time ago to stifle his gag reflex. Besides, now he was more worried about the tears in his eyes.

Bill decided to manifest out of nowhere, finally, dropping down next to Eddie to yank the door open and help him to sit. They all crowded back into the bank, where the Dead couldn’t reach. “Are you oh-k-k-kuh-kay?”

Jaw set enough to make his teeth hurt, Eddie's first inclination was to nod. He wanted to nod with all his heart, and be okay, just like all the other times they had a close call. He wanted Bill to pull him up, and for the three of them to go home.

But he lifted his hand, and the painful, bloody, dirty gashes blazing into his flesh revealed that Eddie was further from okay than he had ever been in his entire life.

“Oh, god,” Bill grunted, Mike staring on in disbelief behind him.

“It's fine,” Eddie urged, nodding now that it was the only thing he could think to do. “It's fine, it's fine, just do what you have to.”

“We’re not going to k-kuh-kill you,” Bill insisted, voice firm, even through his stutter.

“Don't be stupid! I'll be dead by the end of the day anyway, and useless. I could hurt you and then we’ll all be fucked.”

“No!”

“Shut up! Both of you. We’re not resorting to that, Eddie,” Mike intoned, holstering the rifle to kneel with beside them. Already he was rummaging through his tattered backpack, dumping out all the medical supplies Eddie had carefully collected from abandoned stores and homes over the last few months - and their bottle of whiskey. The stores were all out of peroxide, long looted over. “Not yet, anyway. We have to cut it off. But you have to do it now or there's no point.”

“Cut his arm off?” Bill demanded, horrified.

“If that's the alternative to turning or dying, then yes!” Eddie snapped. Of all the times to be so fucking stupid! His heart might be beating into his stomach but even he knew what to expect from this.

“It's the only way,” Mike said gravely, passing his own knife into Bill's shaking hands. It was all so shitty and wrong but somehow Eddie knew that if anyone was going to inflict this shit on him then it better be Bill Denbrough. 

Working fast, he got a wad of his own shirt clenched between his teeth. They tore off a strip from the bottom and tied tight toward his shoulder, restricting blood flow. Bill was as pale as a sheet, but set to task, knowing all other options were far, far worse.

The worst part wasn’t the pain, or the fact that Eddie couldn’t allow himself to scream anymore than he already had. It was that final, gut-wrenching realization that if he ever saw his friends again, nothing would ever be the same.

***

“ _ I spy with my little eye _ ...something green.”

“Everything's green,” Stanley huffed, throwing his arms up toward the tall canopy overhead - untouched by all the decay and destruction below. “We're in the forest, can you be more specific?”

Ben grumbled, and thought a moment before he added, “Something round, and dented.”

A bit of quiet, dead as can be (always was) before Beverly pointed out toward the curb. “Is it that Green Giant can?”

“Oh.” Ben blinked. “Yeah.”

“Oh shit, is it open?”

“Yeah, it’s empty.”

“Dammit!”

“This is unbearable,” Stan groaned.

“Richie,” Bev prodded, siding up to him. “Your turn.”

“Just a sec, sugar,” he pleaded, scratching his thought into a crumpled receipt he had found hours ago.  _ #143, Your hair always smells like oranges and basil. I’ve never actually smelled oranges and basil together but I bet they’d smell like your hair. What shampoo do you- _

Suddenly Ben gasped, tripping to a halt. Richie ran nose first into him, and then Stan into him, and before they could start bickering at each other, Haystack shushed them with a frantic wave of his arms.

“ _ I spy _ the sign for Derry!” he exclaimed.

All heads snapped in the same direction, and not a second later the four of them launched into a mad dash to the block of white showing through the trees. It didn’t even faze them that there was probably, absolutely no point in running. 

Sure enough, it was that ugly wooden sign, paint chipped, welcoming folks into the most awful mild-mannered town on earth. Weathered by age and nature, but virtually untouched. Same as it had always been. And fuck was that eerie. Not a single person or thing had come by and marred the sign, even by accident. No mud, blood, or cracks. Richie supposed, and concluded, that people had other things to worry about.

“Guess we made it,” Beverly mumbled. 

No one was particularly eager to take the first step, staring into the trees, where the path bled into the foliage. How long ago had they rode by this sign on a bus, on a stupid school trip? Richie couldn’t tell you. Time was a construct, and felt particularly so in the aftermath of a zombie outbreak.

“What if...” Ben uttered, sounding particularly loud in the silent woods, “ what if we don’t like what we find?”

“I’d say that’s business as usual,” Richie declared unceremoniously, and shouldered past his friends to lead the way before his limbs could get the better of him and freeze up.

For all the droll atmosphere the mostly untouched sign advertised, Derry itself could not have been further from it. As soon as they got to the main stretch of road, it was easy to see. Stores ransacked, burned down, or demolished. Overgrown grass and gardens and dead things from all circles of life. 

And yet, no Infected. You could usually find a couple of them wandering around, even in a small town like this. Richie knew better than to let his guard down, but he thought it was pretty peculiar. Maybe there weren’t enough people around for them to snack on.

“Come on,” Beverly urged when he got distracted, nodding in a different direction. “We should check at Bill's and Eddie's house, just in case.”

Suburban Derry hadn't fared much better than downtown. Richie could only imagine how many squatters had come and gone, taking advantage of open doors and broken windows and food left behind in cupboards. As if the four of them could judge.

The Denbrough house, unseemly and small, was empty. Not that anyone expected otherwise. Perhaps what was most strange, though, was that the doors were closed, and the pantry empty.

Bill had always been well-prepared, though. Wherever he was, he was probably doing all right. Richie was pretty sure he himself preferred public speaking to killing Infected, but it made him smirk to think maybe Bill Denbrough liked it the other way around.

Eddie’s house was just down the street, now overgrown and desolate. Even overwhelmed by the same melancholy sensation as Bill’s house, Richie couldn’t keep from pressing forward, calling Eddie’s name right alongside his friends. Checking every room, as if all it took was finding the stupid dork around another corner.

“I found Mrs. K,” Ben reported grimly - which could only mean one thing. Maybe he was wrong for thinking so but Richie figured at least one improvement had come out of this mess.

With Eddie nowhere to be found and his mother disposed of once and for all, laid to rest in the backyard as much as any of them were willing to devote time and effort to, the last task was to take what food and supplies they could find. Eddie would prefer they have it, instead of random looters. They hoped, anyway, wherever he was. Hopefully trotting along somewhere, with that same sourpuss look on his face. 

While Stanley, Beverly, and Ben filled the bags that had once been for schoolwork and souvenirs, Richie shuffled off on his own, taking the steps to the second floor two at a time. The upstairs hallway was stale. Dust floated through the yellow light streaming in from the window at the end of the hall. Mrs. K would have never let it get this way, because of Eddie’s  _ allergies _ . 

There were three doors up here. Richie knew which one to take.

Like almost everything that had no bearing on the strain, the tree outside Eddie's window was just as he remembered it, each time he climbed it. Maybe even leafier than ever. He remembered Eddie asking him for help with homework, only Sonia wouldn’t let him out or Richie in, so he’d have to climb the tree. Getting new comics that Eddie wasn’t allowed to read, so he’d climb the tree so they could read them together. Same thing when he got his hands on some dirty magazines, but Eddie didn’t seem as interested in those. His reactions were funny, at least.

Richie couldn't fathom a single reason to climb the tree ever again. 

Without any ceremony, just a task at hand, he reached into his backpack to retrieve his old History binder, worn and split around the edges. It had been repurposed to hold napkins, tissues, coupons. The loose leaf and homework pages had all gone to fuel a fire, a while ago, when supplies were limited and writing wasn’t exactly a priority. That was before he needed to write down all those millions of better things he should have said to Eddie. 

He only got to a hundred and forty-three. Richie had vastly underestimated just how much a million was.

He let the binder drop onto the neat bed with its obnoxious hospital corners, leveling a dusty thud into the dry air. Why bother leaving it? a part of him wondered, the part that got more cynical with each passing day. He had no idea if Eddie would, or even could, come back here. For all anyone knew, he had made it out west, where there was zero threat of infection, and would never return to Derry.

But Richie supposed, if Eddie did come back, great; he'd know Richie was alive and around. If he didn't, then Richie would just have to tell him everything in person, someday. Hopefully. 

Those were his best options, and he didn't even want to think of the other possibilities.

He turned to leave, only to stop short at the sight of Beverly filling the doorway. How long had she been there?

Her expression was bland. If she pitied him, she didn't show it.

“We're taking off. We're gonna hit Mike’s farm next. If everything works out we can stay there for tonight, look around some more tomorrow. It’s probably a good place to set ourselves up while we figure out what to do next.”

Nodding, Richie let one more glance linger around the room, before moving to join Beverly. He made a very good attempt at sighing his worries away, and let an arm drop around her shoulders. She stumbled under the added weight, and knocked at his ribs good-naturedly.

“Bet we could swing by the ice cream parlor. Won’t even have to pay for your jimmies.”

She snorted, and grabbed his hand with both of hers. “Ice cream melts, dumbass. It’s probably summer by now anyway.”

“Oh shit, I didn’t even notice.” Richie laughed. On their way out, he shut the door to Eddie’s room, as if to preserve that time in his life once and for all.

***

“H-huh-h-how’s your arm?” Bill asked, fiddling with the plastic buckles on his bookbag - all the grace of a nerd trying to ask out a cheerleader.

Eddie stared up at him from his cross-legged position, his hand balanced on one knee. He couldn’t quite balance the other one on his knee, since, well, it hadn’t been part of him for fifty miles or so.

“How do you think?” he retorted blandly, his face feeling tight and tired. He  _ felt  _ like a cheerleader getting asked out by a nerd. A persistent nerd who wouldn’t stop asking the same question over and over again and couldn't take a hint.

Bill’s face fell a little, and he shuffled from foot to foot - which was an excellent way of making Eddie feel awful. He knew Bill was just looking out for him, curious about his well-being. But Eddie had been tired of the  _ are you okays _ before this all happened and now it was way too much for him.

“It’s okay,” he revised, pushing himself up to stand with Bill. They were about to get going anyway. “Still pretty tender, hurts like a bitch. But it’s not infected. That’s as good as it gets.”

Bill Denbrough graced the god-forsaken universe with a smile then, and squeezed Eddie’s shoulder - the good one that is, letting his fingers slip away to trail behind Mike, and Eddie behind Bill. They had covered a lot of ground, but none of them were very eager to stop until they reached their destination.

These days, minutes bled into hours and back again like nobody’s business, but it didn’t feel like very long at all before the edge of an old wooden fence manifested on the horizon, over the grassy flats and hills of central Maine. A big breath swelled in Mike’s chest and he picked up the pace, bringing Bill and Eddie running after him. For the thousandth time, Eddie wished they had taken a car.

There was the Hanlon farm, pushed back from the road, tucked into its own little spot on the outskirts of Derry. The place had never been pristine or brand-new, at least as Eddie knew it, and couldn’t tell if the big brown barn, and the house alongside it, were any worse for wear than they had been the last time he came by. And when was that, again? At Christmas, or New Years? He couldn’t remember. Winter felt like eons ago.

The field beyond the fence was empty, no sheep to graze at the tangled weeds. Mike hauled himself up over the wooden beams, one leg at a time.

“Wait!” Eddie exclaimed all of a sudden. Mike froze, bewildered. “I thought your grandfather didn’t like us hopping the fence.”

The last thing he expected was for Mike to level a dry look at him, exasperated like a parent whose toddler was asking them too many questions. “You think it matters right now? This is the quickest way.”

Bill wheezed out a laugh, head bent toward his chest, narrow shoulders shaking. “Leave it to you to f-ff-fuh-follow rules in the apocalypse.” 

Mike tossed his head back, laughing in kind. Eddie glared at both of them incredulously, howling like hyenas.

Only for his mouth to twitch, splitting into a smile as giggles spilled out between his teeth, doubling over for them to tumble to the ground. It was probably stress induced more than anything, but for now it was just a relief to laugh with two of his best friends, watery eyes and aching bellies. If it weren’t for laughing, they all would have gone insane at some point.

And so they hopped the fence, tracking across the pasture until they reached the house. You didn’t realize just how much land Mike’s grandfather had until you had to walk across it, huffing and puffing all the while. Even the walk from the driveway was its own little workout.

“Where do you think your grandfather is?” Eddie asked, hiking his backpack higher so it didn’t slip off his bad arm.

“Don’t know,” Mike said, almost forlorn. “Maybe in town. For all I know maybe he found a-”

The front door banged open, rocking on its hinges. All three of them grasping for weapons as a figure filled the doorway - until the storm door shoved aside, and Mike’s grandfather was there, clear as day.

Mike dropped everything to run forward, jumping onto the porch and straight into his grandfather with enough force to have them both rocking dangerously. Astonishment trickled away to realization, and then acceptance, and Eddie sighed his cares away for a brief moment of utter, unadulterated relief.

Safe. For now.

“Most everyone who’s not dead or left is at the high school,” Mr. Hanlon explained. They had all gathered at the kitchen table, draped in a checkered tablecloth that stood in sharp contrast the the gray, dingy outdoors. He stitched Eddie’s arm with proper tools, dressed it in proper bandages, with proper disinfectant. Eddie did his best not to curse, but no one looked at him wrong if he did anyway.

“Some people stayin’ at their own places, like me. I don’t think it’s safe to have everyone huddled together in one place like that. Sitting ducks if you ask me.”

“Tell me about it,” Eddie grumbled, remembering Augusta - and then hissing when the stitches shifted gratingly.

“Got plenty of food too. The Dead don’t go after animals, for some reason. Not that any of this makes a lick of goddamn sense anyway.”

“Do you know if our friends have come around?” Mike asked across the table. “Beverly and Ben and Richie and Stan?”

His grandfather furrowed his brow, lost in concentration.

“Girl, red hair,” Mike deadpanned. “Husky kid with a round face.”

“Curly h-hair,” Bill added, gesturing with his hands. “Wears a yarmulke s-suh-sometimes.”

“Asshole with glasses, talks too much,” Eddie chimed in desperately.

“Oh yeah, yeah, I remember,” Mr. Hanlon said, nodding as he smoothed the last bit of medical tape over Eddie’s gauze. “Haven’t seen them around. But the Canada quarantine fell apart, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they came around at some point. So long as they didn’t - well, you know.”

“We know,” Mike agreed simply, while Eddie tried his best not to dwell on that last resounding convergence at the school bus back in April.

“I hear everything’s fine, south of New York. Managed to cut off the strain before it got to the city. Who knows what they’ll do with Canada and New England once they slow everything down.”

“Any news on a c-c-cure?” Bill asked.

Mike’s grandfather hummed. “Don’t know. Suppose it’s either that or they’ll drop a bomb or something. Maybe Canada’s working on it.”

That wasn’t a particular line of thinking Eddie was very eager to indulge. “Maybe we should check out the school,” he suggested, glancing between Bill and Mike. “We can see who’s there, scope it out.”

“We’ll go,” Bill said. “You ss-ss-s-stay here and rest.”

“All you ever tell me to do is rest!” Eddie exclaimed, throwing his good arm in the air. “I want to go. Mike deserves to catch up with his grandfather. I’m perfectly capable of carrying my stupid butt to Derry High school. I did it every day for the past three years.”

“I think he’ll be fine, Bill,” Mike chuckled, crossing his arms at the table.

Bill’s face screwed up as he went on debating with himself, until he finally sighed, and stood from his seat. “Okay. I’m j-j-juh-just nervous. All you c-can use is a knife.”

“Hold on just a second.” Mr. Hanlon pushed himself away from the table, and strode out the back door, the screen flapping behind him. Eddie’s mind spun around what he might come back with - a machete? A butcher knife? A revolver? The magazine in Augusta wouldn’t give him one but maybe Mr. Halon would be a little more lenient.

But it was none of those. Mike’s granddad came back with a belt full of bullets, and a familiar cylindrical pistol.

“Only need one hand for this,” he declared, handing off the cattle gun to Eddie. “Gotta get close but those suckers are pretty slow anyway. Sure beats a knife.”

“Thanks?” Eddie managed, as the belt was draped over his shoulder. Didn’t he have a real firearm or something? He felt a little ridiculous holstering the cattle gun, like he was off to slay some zombie sheep.

“Best get going. Sometimes the Dead cluster around at night. You don’t wanna get caught out late.”

With that, and some fresh supplies, Eddie set out with Bill. It wasn’t the first time he left and came back to Derry with no real desire to keep going. Somehow, this trek was much easier than all the six AM bus rides he’d suffered to and from school over the last three years.

***

Out of sheer curiosity, Richie hunkered down, and pulled open the creaking lid of the mailbox. A wad of envelopes and catalogues greeted him and he gasped, shoving his hands in.

“Grandpa Hanlon hasn’t gotten his mail in...two months!” he proclaimed, sifting through addresses. “And he’s subscribed to Better Homes and Gardens! Who fucking knew?”

“Isn’t that illegal?” Ben asked. “Taking other people’s mail?”

“As if anyone’s around to enforce that law,” Beverly murmured, smirking.

“And I’m gonna put it in his house, so it’s not stealing.” Richie tucked the stack under his arm, and gestured widely to the dirt driveway spread out in front of them. “Gentleman. Gentlelady. Shall we?”

They started down the path, kicking up brown dust under their worn-out shoes. “Did we really have to walk all the way around?” Stan demanded as he trudged along.

“You know Mike’s grandfather never liked it when we hopped the fence.”

The grass reached up to Richie’s shins, with no sheep around to act as nature’s lawn mower. They came around the back, and found the pickup truck parked in its usual spot. Which didn’t necessarily mean anything, except wherever Mike’s grandfather wound up, he didn’t have his vehicle of choice.

“Maybe we should split up,” Ben suggested as they rounded the barn. “Two of us check the house and two of us check the barn. I think if we-”

“Shush.” Stan waved a hand in Ben’s face, a finger pressed to his lips. It took all of three seconds for a chill to creep up Richie’s back, fingers flexing at his sides. He didn’t even know what was going on but that chill was practically a reflex at this point. His own stupid Spidey Sense.

“Do you hear that?” Stan murmured, squinting into middle space. Richie kept his ears peeled, waiting for the wet snarls that would have his stomach lurching. 

Try as he might, nothing came. Scanning the horizon left no Dead to be seen. But over the wind sifting through the dry grass, he  _ did  _ hear something. A rolling whine. A wavering cry. Familiar if Richie could just put his finger on it.

Wait a second.

Bypassing his friends, he jogged over to the big barn doors. They were padlocked shut, but the chain was loose, and as Richie slid the huge red slats aside as much as he was able, it all became clear, and he guffawed.

“What the fuck?” Stanley whispered behind him, staring in complete confusion at the undulating sea of woolly coats right before their eyes.

“What’s the matter, never seen a sheep before?” Richie snickered. “They gotta sleep somewhere, Stanley. They probably take turns counting each other.”

“Yeah but how are they all here?” Beverly asked. “How have they not been eaten or starved to death.”

“Cannibalism, perhaps?”

“Richie…”

“Someone has to be taking care of them,” Ben mentioned.

“What, like there’s time to let ‘em graze at a time like this?”

“I sure ain’t letting them go hungry, I’ll tell you that.”

There was the unmistakable click of a shotgun, and Richie couldn’t tell if he’d startled worse in his entire life. He almost pissed himself, tensing his whole body until it ached.

The four of them step-ball changed their way to facing around - only to stare on in dismay at the sight of Mike Hanlon’s very own grandfather. Of course, it was a little hard to feel relief with his weathered fingers inches from a trigger.

“Ain’t nothing to steal here,” he stated, glancing up over his big gun. Why’d they have to make shotguns look so scary.

“Mr. Hanlon, it’s us,” Beverly answered incredulously, even as she raised her hands to her shoulders in potential defense.

“Don’t know who  _ us _ is. You best be off.”

“Granddad!”

As if the day wasn’t done throwing surprises their way, there was a clatter at the back of the house that drew all heads in its direction. There was no mistaking the voice, but that didn’t stop the slow intake of breath that swelled in Richie’s chest, at the sight of Michael Hanlon for the first time in months, as he threw open the back door and jogged to meet them - stopping dead when they all made eye contact .

No one moved for several seconds. Out of the corner of his eye, Richie saw Beverly cup her hands around her mouth. 

Richie thought he’d be the one to break the silence. He hardly expected Mike to steal his thunder, face spreading into an easy smile as his eyes turned shiny.

“Took you guys long enough.”

After that Richie couldn’t imagine standing still another second, coming forward to plow straight into Mike with all he was worth, nearly falling to his knees in an effort to get a hold on him. Beverly came next, then Ben, then Stanley. There was a good deal of whooping and hollering, the happiest Richie’d felt in months forced out of his lungs in a wet, elated rush.

It was wonderful, until Mr. Hanlon chimed in. “Have your reunion inside, you’ll bring around all the Infected in the county with all that noise!”

“I can’t believe you almost shot my friends!” Mike exclaimed, voice strained. “We told you what they looked like!”

“You expect me to remember?”

“Wait,  _ we _ ?” Beverly asked, eyes wide and red around the edges. “Do you know where Bill and Eddie are?”

There wasn’t enough time in all the world for Richie’s heart to launch up into his throat and dislodge itself to sink into his stomach, but it managed to accomplish all that and more in the time it took Mike to respond. “You just missed them, they went into town. Oh, damn, they’re going to lose it when they get back.”

“Get back?” Richie asked, bleating out a laugh. “Can we even wait that long?”

“I wouldn’t mind sitting down,” Stanley piped in.

“Fuck that, I gotta find them.” Hands shaking, Richie shoved out of his backpack and handed it off to Ben, who didn’t seem all that eager to take it. “It’s been too fucking long. If I try to sit still knowing their right in town I’m gonna die!” 

Okay, well, that wasn’t entirely true. He had been a lot closer to dying in all the time it took to get here.

“Who’s with me?” he asked, like all five of them weren’t looking at him like he was bullshitting an oral report in English. “Come on, Bev, bet you’re dying to know where that sweet piece of Denbrough ass is.”

“I’m not,” she bit out, cheeks blooming pink (while Haystack ducked his head as his ears turned suspiciously crimson). 

“So you’d rather he be lost forever, huh? That’s cold Marsh, even for you.”

“That’s not what I-” She clammed up and schooled herself, just enough to cock her hip and cross her arms. “There’s just no point, Richie. Mike said they’d be back and it’s dangerous. You should stay here.”

Richie hummed, tapping his chin thoughtfully. Eventually, he swiveled his attention in the direction of Mr. Hanlon. “How dangerous would you say Derry is right now, Mr. Mike’s grandpa?”

“Right now? Alright, for a while,” he answered, prompting Richie to cheese gleefully at Beverly. “People don’t come out much, so it doesn’t attract the Dead. In the daytime, anyway, so be careful about nightti-”

“Bye!” Richie turned, ready to march off - only to remember something very important, stop short, and turn back to Mike. Both hands rose to clutch either of those smooth russet cheeks, dark eyes widening at him (as if he’d never done this before).

“I’m glad you’re okay. Take care of the children while I’m gone.” A wet smack of lips on Mike’s forehead and Richie was off, thinking with every step maybe he should have saved that for when Mr. Hanlon wasn’t around.

***

Sonia Kaspbrak didn’t get around to cutting the grass very often. She didn’t do it herself, and fuck if she was going to let Eddie push a machine with spinning blades in it across an allergen-infested lawn. The closest it had ever gotten was to Eddie’s calves. Now, it basically qualified as a field.

“Well, that’s t-t-tuh-tuh-technically what a lawn is,” Bill mentioned as they trailed up to the front door, Eddie hiking his legs with every step so he didn’t get attacked by ticks. “A field. J-juh-just with short grass.”

The door was closed, but swung open easily. It didn’t take much of a look around for Eddie to tell his home had been raided at some point. Maybe several points. Cabinets and drawers open, muddy footprints tracked through the house. 

For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. Not in that scary, wheezing kind of way. The air tumbled around in his lungs, deciding on its own time when to come out.

“Mom?” he called into the empty house. Eddie was answered by silence, even as his mind filled in the rapid heavy footsteps, and the sound of her shrill voice as she asked him if he was hurt.

“M-muh-muh-maybe sh-she’s at the high school,” Bill suggested.

It wasn’t long before they found out what had really happened. Eddie felt confident enough to assume what was under the large mound of dirt in the backyard, and he ducked his head as big fat tears rolled down his nose, shoulders shaking against his volition.

“I’m sorry, Eddie,” Bill said mournfully, pulling him into a tight hold.

But Eddie shrugged him away. “No. It’s fine. She was a bitch anyway. We all knew it.” He scrubbed his face dry on his sleeve, sniffling and snotting all the while.

“S-so, good riddance then?” 

Eddie considered the sentiment a moment, but his eyes began to sting again, and he shook his head. Not right now anyway. The feelings he had about his mother were too complicated to address on the back porch for just a few seconds. Not in all this other mess.

Maybe they were feelings about other things too. Derry, his house. He could never really live here again. So many memories and circumstances lost to time, disaster, age. How could everything go to shit in just a couple months?

“The s-s-soil looks fresh,” Bill murmured, looking like he might hop off the porch to inspect Sonia Kaspbrak’s slapdash grave. “Sh-she must have been buried recently.”

“It doesn’t matter. Come on. I’ve got some stuff upstairs,” he said, voice tight as he pushed by Bill. The sooner they were out of this house, the better.

The found an extra first aid kit tucked away in the hall closet, where it had always been, and Bill waited patiently with his bag open in both hands, while Eddie sorted through all the bottles in the medicine cabinet that were good to take. He was a little slow, going at it one-handed, but he probably would have been just as thorough with ten fingers instead of five.

“Okay, that’s that,” he huffed, as Bill zipped up his bulky backpack. “Too bad there wasn’t any food downstairs. Fucking looters.”

Eager to get the hell out of the house, Eddie hurried to his old room and rifled through his drawers for fresh clothes. They were a little musty but he could still smell the fabric softener in them. He couldn’t remember the last time he used a dryer, or a washing machine for that matter. Maybe in Augusta, when they found that functioning laundromat (save a few busted washers) and put all their quarters together for a quick load.

“R-Richie’s always leaving his s-s-st-stuff at our houses,” Bill said fondly, somewhere behind Eddie in the room.

“I know. I’ve got a box of his stupid comics and magazines in my closet,” Eddie said - wondering for a moment whether he should grab them, just in case. He decided no, it was just unnecessary weight. They’d get dirty and ripped up anyway.

“Were you guys doing homew-work before he left?”

“What? No. I’m pretty sure he waited to pack until the last minute and his mom made him stay home to do it.” Clothes clutched across his chest, Eddie stood, and found Bill peering at his bed - specifically, a blue plastic binder lying against the quilt.

“Wait, that’s Richie’s history binder,” Eddie said, confused. Maggie Tozier’s handwriting on the thick plastic spine was unmistakable. The whole thing was a little rough around the edges, more than Richie’s normal lack of regard for school supplies allowed. 

Eddie put his clothes down, to flip open the cover - a little dismayed to find crumpled papers, wrappers, and receipts sticking out of the pockets.

“Gross,” Eddie sneered. “This idiot. Loose leaf isn’t that expensive.”

“I don’t th-think they’re notes, Eddie.” Brow furrowed, Bill leaned over to pull a flattened envelope free. He had to shove his hair to the side to read it; these days his bangs grew too long to be functional.

“ _ Number one hundred and thirty-ss-suh-six _ ,” he recited. “ _ I wish I c-cared about gym class as m-m-much as you do. _ ”

Eddie frowned. “What?”

Bill grabbed a folded napkin. “ _ Number eighty-nine. Don’t let your m-muh-mom get to you. Sh-sh-shuh-she’s a bitch and combined the six of us would make a w-way better mom. _ ”

Eddie’s bloodstream seemed to be better in tune with what was going on than his brain, warming his face instantly, in the seconds it took to figure out what the hell was going on.

“Let me see.” He dropped all his clothes to pick up the binder, using what was left of his arm to prop it up while he leafed through the notes. Numbered and shoved together, receipts and flyers spilling out as Eddie vied for handfuls of words. He couldn’t possibly read them all right now.

A thousand different things exploded across his thoughts, but as his gaze lifted to Bill’s, only one thing came out:

“Richie’s been here!”

“Are you sh-sure?” Bill asked, and Eddie nearly whacked him upside the head with the binder.

“Yes of course I am! I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire fucking life! He wrote these after Quebec, they’re for me!” He grabbed a fistful of the notes, fluttering out of his single pitiful hand. He could barely process what the words actually contained at a time like this but what they meant, here, now, was so much more that he thought his chest might burst.

“Bill, what if he’s here? What if the others are too? We have to find them!”

“Maybe they’re at the high school. But, Eddie...” Bill sighed, shoulders dropping. “I don’t want you to g-get your hopes up.”

“Shut up! My hopes have been dirt low ever since we left for Augusta. Maybe you feel different but I’m sick of being miserable. I want to have a normal life again with my stupid friends!”

Eddie knew how dangerous that way of thinking could be. He’d known for a long time; he wasn’t exactly the optimist of the group.

But if he didn’t hold on to this one thing with all his heart, he didn’t know if he’d be able to keep it up.

***

Running felt pretty valiant and heroic for about a minute and a half, and then Richie started to feel the sweat on his face, the burn in his legs, and the shriek of his lungs. He thought walking everywhere for the last however many months would have given him a little help in the endurance department, but apparently he still had the exercise tolerance of a teenager whose favorite pastime was anything involving sitting.

“ _ But I would walk five hundred miles _ ,” Richie murmured to himself as he came upon town again, taking the familiar but changed roads with mild caution. “ _ And I would like to walk five hundred more, just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at...at… _ ”

Richie stopped dead in the middle of the street and slapped a hand to his forehead. “I forgot to ask where they went!” he exclaimed out loud, nobody but himself and the wind to hear his plight.

There were only so many places in Derry that Bill and Eddie could even stand to be, Richie figured. That had been the case before all this shit happened, and he could imagine the list had narrowed a bit now. Things like the quarry and the ice cream parlor, he figured he could forego. The school for fucking sure. There was probably their houses, if not to find supplies, than to find their parents.

A course of action Richie realized he had completely neglected to even consider.

It didn’t feel very good to remember you were going on a wild goose chase for your friends and not your loving, doting parents. Not that Richie had never thought about his mom and dad in the whole time he had been stuck in Quebec, and then hiking across Maine. He just knew he’d said everything he needed to say to them.  _ I love you, bye, yes I’ll remember to wear deodorant. _

Besides, he was pretty sure his dad could take out any number of zombies with his dental drill alone.

It was as good a place to start as any, what with all the streets that met and melded into each other in this dumb suburban town, so Richie headed off in the direction of his house, hoping at least that if his parents weren’t around and the kitchen had been pillaged, he could collect some things from his room and look elsewhere. And if he was really,  _ really  _ lucky, his mom would be serving Bill and Eddie oreos and milk in the den.

The sun was just starting to turn the sky deep shades of magenta by the time Richie found his street, and then his house. Any relief he had imposed upon himself started to drift away, under the simple observation that it was completely, utterly quiet. Quiet, and dark, no lights on and no TV running.

The sensation was surreal and uncomfortable enough that Richie didn’t waste any time, hurrying through the big empty house, and then up to his room to collect everything he deemed worth keeping. Nothing in the kitchen was salvageable, not even the Twinkies and Cosmic Brownies he had put in his hiding spot behind the sink months ago (apparently Richie didn’t quite grasp the concept of  _ non-perishable  _ before the outbreak happened). Sighing through his teeth, he shut the cabinet under the sink, and turned toward the refrigerator - only to pause.

He had nearly missed it in his first sweep of the place, given his haphazard search to keep emotions from catching up from him. Richie wished he’d been a little more thorough, so he wouldn’t have missed the slip of paper stuck on the freezer door, attached with an acrylic magnet. 

Like it might disappear any second, he snatched it up, the magnet clattering to the floor.

 

_ June 30th _

_ Gone to the high school, it’s safe there. Don’t know if you’ll ever read this but hurry back. Be safe, love you. - Mom & Dad _

_ This is exactly why we should have homeschooled you. Love Dad _

 

Huffing as moisture built up behind his glasses, Richie felt his face ache with the weight of his smile. “Son of a bitch.” He didn’t know what else to say (not that he should be saying anything, in an empty room all by himself).

_ Safe  _ and  _ high school _ were as good clues as any for where he ought to go next, so with his bag loaded and sweatshirt zipped, he headed out into the twilight. This was great. His parents were okay, the gang was back in town, and no one had been infected. It was almost too good to be true.

With things going so great, Richie hardly expected to turn a corner to find a street full of zombies waiting for him.

***

The fastest way to feel like a third wheel was to get stuck in the middle of an argument between your friend and their parents. Eddie couldn’t believe there was time for this shit, given the circumstances. But here he was, listening to Bill bicker with Mr. and Mrs. Denbrough when just a couple minutes ago they had all been tearful and happy to see each other.

“Out on the farm, are you nuts?” his dad demanded.

“It’s s-suh-safe there,” Bill argued.

“Out in the boonies,” his mom countered, unconvinced.

“It’s not the b-b-boonies. It’s t-tuh-t-tucked away, not crowded like here.”

“You’re not walking out to the Hanlon farm in the middle of the night, Bill. Not now.”

“S-suh-so-so now you care where I go a-ah-and what I do?”

“Not to interrupt,” Eddie lied, piping in with his voice raised as loud as he dared go. It got all three Denbroughs to look at him, at least, “but I need to pee, and the restroom in this wing is padlocked.”

“The one in near the gym is safe to use,” Mr. Denbrough reported simply, turning back to Bill a second later. Their stupid fearless leader had his head tipped up and his jaw clenched in that special defiant-of-authority way only Bill Denbrough could truly be, so Eddie decided he wouldn’t be missed, and left to relieve himself.

Derry High had never been very crowded, servicing the bumfuck town where only dropouts an dumbasses settled to have kids, and now Eddie wondered if this was what real schools in real towns might be like (minus having to live there). People populating the halls, veering from one classroom to the next. The gymnasium was lined with sleeping bags, while other classrooms had been set up to hold entire families at a time. The cafeteria served the same purpose it always had, but apparently some lavatories had been converted to makeshift laundry rooms.

But still, no Richie. No Stanley or Beverly or Ben or anyone else he could possibly care about  _ needing _ to find. They had gotten a feel for what was going on here at the school, grabbed some rations, just in case, and run into Mr. and Mrs. Denbrough. Now what? Wait around while Bill squared off with his dad?

Or maybe, Eddie thought, glancing at the double doors adjacent to the gym, under a dead red EXIT sign, he could get his own shit done.

Glancing back to make sure Bill’s tiff hadn’t ended already, Eddie yanked his backpack straps tighter and marched outside, slipping away as natural as you like. No one noticed - why would they? Everyone was going in and out at their own pace, with their own things to do. Eddie was just paranoid. He couldn’t grow out of  _ everything _ in the aftermath of an outbreak, after all.

The mild complaints of his bladder disappeared pretty quickly under the task at hand: find Richie, or prove he wasn’t in Derry anymore. It couldn’t be that hard, there were only so many places that four-eyed idiot could be. Eddie just needed to figure out what to prioritize.

It had gotten late enough to be dark, the sky glowing indigo as the world fell into silhouette. The farther he got from the school, the harder it was to see, even as his eyes adjusted. Eddie finally stopped to take out his flashlight, a whole ordeal that involved sliding off his backpack and yanking the dumb thing out of a pocket he had to zipper open and closed, and then put his backpack on again. The inconvenience of having only one arm was starting to hurt worse than the actual thing.

Eddie had just changed the batteries a couple days ago, providing a bright and shining cone of white to illuminate the paved street in front of him. He waved the flashlight this way and that, across empty houses and craggy gardens. He wanted to say he knew Derry like the back of his hand, even in the dark, but even the streets all became identical under the blanket of night. 

Eddie’s quiet, eerie walk eventually led him a little too far out of the suburbs, toward the Kissing Bridge near the Barrens. He could only imagine what might be stumbling around down there, if the sewer smell attracted the Dead. Another set of happy memories, polluted by this damn infection. Not that much else had turned out to be sacred.

Sighing, Eddie fell back a couple steps, and finally turned to figure out another direction to aim his search. What he should have been, though, was less worried about what the Barrens held and more about what was right in front of him, as he waved his flashlight into the street and came face-to-face with a rotting Infected.

A shout soared past Eddie’s teeth in the same breath that his body jolted, the flashlight clattering out of his hand in an arc of brightness. The Infected’s ratty shoes shuffled toward him in the triangle of light on the ground, but Eddie’s eyes had to readjust, and until then, he was utterly blind.

Trembling as his flashlight revealed the festering figure in spooky story lighting, Eddie crouched away, feet scraping back. Even with all the knowledge that he was faster, stronger, and armed, he might as well have had arthritis for all his shaking. All he could remember was the bank, and the doors, and those burning, diseased fingernails.

But he couldn’t fuck it all up now. Bill was waiting for him. Mike was waiting for him. Richie was out there  _ somewhere _ ,  _ hopefully _ waiting for him. Eddie wasn’t about to let any of them find  _ him _ limping through Derry with gray skin and no pulse.

Before he could get caught up enough for his lungs to give out on him and go into an asthma attack, Eddie schooled himself enough to tuck and roll, barreling past the Dead, sprawled out on the road a second later. But his flashlight was within reach, and as Eddie hauled to his feet, he snatched it up, lurching dangerously before finding his footing and booking off into the night.

Legs pumping and chest heaving, Eddie yanked his lightsource up in front of him, and nearly stopped dead. Dead as the Infected drifting around him like moths to a fucking flame. There had to be dozens. Not enough to form a crowd but enough to have his blood turn icy in his veins as their horrible faces loomed close.

There was only one choice. One thing he could do, with one hand and no one to save him. Eddie dropped his flashlight and took off.

The light marked his way for several yards, vision adjusting gradually to the stiff dark. The bent-up figures bumbled on either side of him, this way and that as he careened around them. With one hand, he managed to get a bolt free from the belt Mr. Hanlon had given him, set it between his teeth, and unholstered the cattle gun to load with nothing but five fingers, the stump on his arm, and the tip of his nose.

The throng of Dead thickened, and the farther they were from the light, the more interested they were in the fast, warm, frightened figure darting between them. One swiped, and Eddie ducked, grateful for long sleeves and good reflexes. Shoving his elbows out sent them tumbling away, into each other like dominoes. How had these dumb idiot zombies taken over his entire life?

Legs cramping, chest caving on him, for how long, Eddie didn’t know, only that sprinting through a street of zombies felt like some kind of purgatory. The flashlight was long gone. Now it was just him and the Dead, and the ghost of Derry.

Eddie’s heel connected with a pothole and his whole leg bent painfully, sending him flailing forward into the closest Infected. He landed hard in a cacophony of grunts, face against grimy fabric, elbows against asphalt. Gritting his teeth, Eddie plugged his nose against any possible stench, knuckles dragging roughly as he got a grip on the cattle gun.

There were hands, then, yanking at his shirt and he shoved the gun against the Infected’s forehead, screaming, begging,  _ not again not again not again not ever again- _

“StopstopstopstopSTOP!”

His trigger finger froze. The noise evaporated from his mouth, leaving his throat raw. Eddie stared at the form heaving under him, harsh breaths and quivering limbs.

Warm and solid under Eddie’s thighs.

He blinked, glancing around, forcing the black world into whatever focus he could glean. Just inches away on the pebbly ground laid a pair of glasses with big square lenses, sent flying from the impact.

Bringing his gaze squarely center once more, Eddie lifted his arm, wide eyed, and sat fixed on the familiar forgotten face not even four feet under him. Not miles, or countries away. Four whole feet.

“Richie?”

“BehindyoubehindyouBEHIND YOU!”

Eddie threw his head back hard enough to give himself whiplash, but the pinprick of pain in his neck wasn’t enough to keep from twisting enough to aim the cattle gun at the drooling Infected looming in behind him, and pull the trigger. There was a wet  _ shoonk _ as it collapsed backward. Dead. Real dead, God willing.

“Come on!” Scrambling upright, Eddie gave up the cattle gun to the depths of the dark to get a grip on Richie’s hand, hauling him upright and away from the fast approaching corpses. It took them both several steps to get their bearings, but with their combined weight it was easier to shove the awful things aside.

“Here!” Richie yelled, pulling Eddie off through the bustle and toward a house on the next corner, the first since the Kissing Bridge. There weren’t any Infected on the front lawn but that wasn’t good enough, and they jumped up the porch, Eddie diving for the doorknob. It turned with merciful ease and he cried out, relieved, as he tripped into the abandoned home.

He landed on his butt in the foyer as Richie shut the door with a thud, twisting the lock secure, as if the Dead had the motor function to handle the knob anyway.

There was a good deal of panting, noisy breath filling the space as Eddie got reacquainted with being motionless. Somehow he got his backpack off, and his hand around his aspirator, enough to get a puff in his lungs and to fall back onto the rug.

“Holy  _ fucking _ shit, fuck, are you okay?” Richie wheezed. Dropping down to his knees beside Eddie. The moment he made any effort to touch, Eddie remembered where he was, why he was here, and shot up.

He couldn’t get his arms around Richie fast enough. Or rather, his one arm, and what was left of the other, clutching around a bulky backpack desperately as his whole body racked with sobs. His only saving grace was the moment Richie’s arms cinched around him too, bent into his shoulder, wet blooming on Eddie’s shirt where those bare eyes rubbed.

More than two hundred and eighty six miles and a fatal illness with no known cure ebbed away under the weight, the sound, the palpable reality of two teenage boys weeping into each other's arms.

“You got me that come back, Kaspbrak?” Richie choked, sounding like he was trying to grin or laugh under the mucus muddying his voice. “I’ve been waiting since April.”

Eddie shook his head into Richie’s neck, tears dripping warm and salty between his teeth as his lips spread into a smile. “No. I just wanted yours.”

***

“Sorry, they’re a little dirty,” Ben confessed. “I tried to keep them wrapped up in a T-shirt but I think the rain did them in.”

“Don’t apologize,” Mike laughed.

“I’m just f-fluh-flattered you remembered us, apocalypse and all,” Bill added.

“Well, this was before, actually. The gift shops didn’t open the day after the first raid.”

“If you want a Canadian apocalypse souvenir, I could give you my exit pass,” Beverly mentioned, curled up in the corner of the couch with a steaming mug of tea. Thank god for gas stoves. “It’s got a stamp and everything.”

“Not sure any of us want a souvenir from all this,” Stan sighed, taking up the other corner. “Isn’t the PTSD enough?”

“He’s just mad he lost so many cards from the deck he got at the gift shop,” Richie explained to Eddie. “Stangela, I told you I’d buy you that shot glass with the boobs on it.”

“Piss right the fuck off, Richie.”

Eddie laughed, and Richie watched him hold the keychain Ben had given him up to the light. It wasn’t anything special, just imitation gold with an enamel red leaf pendant. Still made Richie wish he’d had the wherewithal to get something, anything better than a binder full of dirty napkins.

He didn’t know how long they spent in that dark, empty house. At some point a patrol group from the high school came around to ward the Infected back down toward the Barrens, using flashlights and radios to get them moving. Richie and Eddie left, and caught up with Bill at the high school, and made it back here. It was almost too easy. Richie thought he might be dreaming, pinching the soft skin under his wrist every time his mind got away from him, just to make sure.

“I can’t believe it,” Mike murmured, quiet. His grandfather was asleep, after all, and as safe as the cozy den felt, no one was very eager to attract the horrors from outside. “We’re all here, all in one piece.”

“Most of us,” Eddie grumbled, gesturing toward the stump on his left arm.

“I think it makes you look cool,” Richie gushed. “You could totally go all  _ Evil Dead _ with it, duct tape a chainsaw to and mow down zombies that way.”

From his perch in the recliner, Eddie glanced at Richie, managing a tiny smirk before he looked away. The energy between them might have been enough to put the whole farm back on the grid, but Richie couldn’t deny he wasn’t very eager to let it come to fruition in front of their friends, who he was equally as glad were alive.

“What do we do now?” Beverly asked, swirling her tea bag idly. “Is it even safe to be here, now? Your grandfather said the dead don’t really come around here, but what about with Eddie and Richie?”

“I guess we feel it out,” Mike offered, shrugging. “If it gets bad, we’ll leave. I think it’s pretty safe here, as long as it’s just the eight of us. I’m just hoping they stop this shit from spreading and work on it from there.”

“What about our parents?” Stan asked.

“I think it would be fine if they came. I’m just not trying to turn the farm into a crowded disaster, you know?”

“My p-puh-parents are skeptical,” Bill admitted. “But, I’m just glad you guys are all s-s-suh-safe. I really m-missed you.”

“Here-here,” Beverly answered, raising her mug.

“Here-here,” the rest of them chorused, cupless or not. 

Richie didn’t know what to do with a moment like this. All he knew was that it was as close to perfect as anything in the last few months had ever been. When he couldn’t quite stop himself, he reached up onto the armrest of Eddie’s chair, thumb brushing a pinky.

That pinky closed over his fingers, and Richie breathed easy.

“I’m going to bed,” Mike announced, pushing to his feet. “Sorry. I know it’s been forever.”

“Don’t be,” Ben replied. “It’s probably been forever since you slept in your own bed too.”

Mike chuckled. “Speaking of, I could probably fit two more with me. I know it’s not ideal, but-”

Stanley and Beverly were faster than the rest of them could ever hope to be, hopping over the couch to march on up to Mike’s room with their host floundering to catch up.

“There’s blankets and pillows in the hall closet!” Mike called over his shoulder, before he disappeared up the stairs once and for all.

“We better be taking turns with that shit,” Eddie huffed, pulling the crank on the recliner to pop his legs up.

Bill grabbed the proffered comforts from the closet, distributing soft downs and warm fleeces to Ben, who took the empty couch, Eddie in the recliner, and Richie next to him on the floor. Bill gathered his own, blew out the candle, and spread out next to the window.

Even without the creaking old farmhouse, the hard floor on his back, and the threat of fast and deadly disease outside, Richie didn’t think he could sleep. He had grown used to all those things anyway, why should they hinder him now?

“Hey,” Eddie called all of a sudden. Richie glanced up, and in the blurry dark, could just make out Eddie’s cheek puffed against the arm rest. He never found his glasses from that close encounter in the street, and had been semi-blind all the time following.

“You can come up here, if you want,” Eddie whispered. “Just don’t starfish or anything or we’ll tip backwards.”

Richie obliged silently, clutching his blanket and pillow close as he rolled over the edge of the recliner. Eddie scooted for him, the gears groaning under their combined weight. The chair held, but Richie had to tuck his legs close to keep the footrest from caving down.

“Comfy,” he murmured, only half-sarcastic. It would have been a total lie if he said the warmth radiating off Eddie’s skin, their bodies flush together between clothes, was any kind of intolerable.

“Sorry, by the way,” Eddie said, conducting the conversation just quiet enough that Ben and Bill wouldn’t be bothered. “That I almost shot you. Oh god, that could have been awful.”

“Don’t be,” Richie stated, shaking his head against the back cushion. “If you hadn’t, we might never have found each other. I mighta been stuck in that horde until - well, worst case scenario.”

“I don’t even want to think about that.”

“Sorry.”

“I was so scared, all the time. Of what might happen to you, up there in the thick of it.”

“I know. I was too.”

“Really?” 

“Really.” The tremor hadn’t quite left Richie’s body, not since he left his house and turned that corner. It was small, but it had settled in his chest, ever present. 

“I think I’m still scared,” he whispered, watching Eddie’s big brown eyes glint in what little light came from the window. “I probably looked like such a pussy out there, shrieking at you to stop like a little kid. But fuck, Eds. I can’t believe it. You were so ready to just fucking nail a zombie through the skull. No fear, no nothing.” Not like anything Richie had ever expected. Here he had worried about Eddie being petrified this whole time. What a dumbass thing to think.

Eddie shook his head. “Yes fear. Lots of it.”

Richie couldn’t hold back anymore. He tipped forward enough to slide their mouths together, zero hesitancy. As if either of them could afford to be hesitant.

Eddie met him eagerly, lone hand reaching up to clutch around his neck, into his hair. Richie all but pressed him into the chair in an effort to just get lost in as much contact as he could, swallow himself up in it. Any place where cool air touched his itchy skin wasn’t nearly good enough.

This was never how Richie expected to have his first kiss with Eddie, if ever at all. It sucked that it took a zombie outbreak to make it happen. He might have gone his entire life never knowing Eddie’s mouth tasted like menthol chapstick.

Without much desire to escalate, with their friends sleeping in the same room, Richie drifted back, letting his forehead and nose bump against Eddie’s. His hands curled securely around a firm waist, bent toward him as their legs slid together. Richie didn’t want to be not touching Eddie ever again.

“What’s going to happen after this?” Eddie asked, his voice little more than a vibration against Richie’s collarbone.

He couldn’t tell what Eddie meant. It could have been anything. What they were all going to do now that they had found each other again. How they would survive. Whether or not the world would go back to normal and eradicate the Ottawa Strain.  How the hell you were supposed to have a boyfriend in rural bumfuck Maine, or even focus on romance at all with such greater things to worry about.

“I don’t know,” Richie responded honestly. For the last few months, he didn’t know what would happen tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that, and the tomorrow after that. This tomorrow wasn’t any different.

“But I do know that right now, we’re safe,” he added, feeling a little weird in his sincerity, sliding his arms tighter so he could drop his cheek against Eddie’s hair. Oranges and basil. “I know we should probably sleep, dunno if that’s gonna happen. I know I missed you. And I’m sorry it took the end of the fucking world to get to...well. This.”

“It’s okay,” Eddie said, his one single grip sure and steady. “If that’s what it took then maybe we’re too dumb to have it any other way.”

Richie scoffed. “Maybe.”

“I am curious, though.” Eddie untucked his head from under Richie’s chin, tipping away so that they could look at each other. Not that Richie was doing very well straining his eyes in the fuzzy dark. “Those notes.”

“Oh, you found those?”

“Well, you left them on my bed.”

“You got me there.” Didn’t stop Richie’s face from warming though, unable to keep from being just a little embarrassed by his past self’s dramatics. And wasn’t that an unusual feeling. 

“What was number one?” Eddie asked, as his fingers traced patterns on Richie’s neck. “Like, the first thing you wanted to tell me. The most important.”

Richie’s brow furred, lost in thought.  _ Number one, number one _ . He had written it so long ago. 

“Oh,” he remembered, a smile tugging at his mouth as he adjusted to prop his head up on one hand. It left the space between him and Eddie a little wanting but he had a feeling his bedfellow might not be super inclined to cuddle after this. “You want to know what the first thing I wrote down was?”

“Yes,” Eddie insisted.

“It was,  _ Will do, little man _ . Because that’s what I said to you in French. Like if I’d known I was never gonna see you again, I would have at least spoken English.”

Eddie barked out a laugh, far louder than they were aiming to be at that hour. But Richie couldn’t keep from grinning, ear to ear, as his best friend shoved at him, in a playful fit that eventually dissolved into a embrace, and another tender, overdue kiss. Soft, sweet, content. Safe. Everything he had lost in the last few months all combined into this moment.

For the first time in a long time, even from before the outbreak, Richie Tozier completely forgot about the shitty planet Earth he shared with Eddie Kaspbrak.


End file.
